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181Author:  Shillaber B. P. (Benjamin Penhallow) 1814-1890Add
 Title:  Knitting-work  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: Gentlemen: It has suddenly occurred to me that a preface is altogether unnecessary, and, therefore, I positively decline writing one, inasmuch as I have commenced five already, and been compelled to abandon them all, from sheer inability to complete them. Prefaces have always seemed to me like drummers for a show, calling upon people to “come up and see the elephant,” with a slight exaggeration of the merit of the animal to be exhibited; and though, in the present case, such enlargement of the fact would not be necessary, still those disposed to be captious might read our promises with incredulity. Mrs. Partington, no less than the Roman dame, should be above suspicion; therefore, this heralding should be avoided, and her name left with only its olden reputation resting about it, like the halo of cobweb and dust about an ancient vintage of port. Her coädjutors, Dr. Spooner, Old Roger, and Wideswarth, representing the profound, the jolly, and the sentimental, need no endorsement among the enlightened many who will buy this book; and we can safely leave them, as lawyers sometimes do their cases when they have nothing to say, without argument. Again, all will see for themselves the acid and sugar, and spirit and water, comprised in the contents of the volume, — forming the components of a sort of intellectual punch, of which they can partake to any extent, without headache or heartache, as the sedate therein forms a judicious corrective of the eccentric and gay which might intoxicate. The illustrations, by Hoppin, tell their own story, and need no further commendation than their great excellence. The local meaning of many of the sayings and doings of the book will, of course, be readily understood, without explanation or apology; and the new matter will be distinguished from the old, by the quality of novelty that generally attaches to that with which we are not familiar. I thought somewhat of giving the name beneath each individual represented in our frontispiece; but the idea was dispelled in a moment, by the reflection that Mrs. Partington — the central sun of our social system — could not be misinterpreted; while Dr. Spooner, Prof. Wideswarth, Old Roger, and Ike, were equally well defined; and the skill of the artist in depicting them needed no aid. Therefore, all things considered, I think we had better let the book slip from its dock quietly, and drift out into the tide of publication, to be borne by this or that eddy of feeling to such success as it may deserve, without the formality of prefatory bottle-breaking. I leave the matter, then, as a settled thing, that we will not have a preface. When Mrs. Partington first moved from Beanville, and the young scion of the Partington stock was exposed to the temptations of city life and city associations, it was thought advisable to appoint a “guardeen” over him. Ike was not a bad boy, in the wicked sense of the word bad; but he had a constant proclivity for tormenting every one that he came in contact with; a resistless tendency for having a hand in everything that was going on; a mischievous bent, that led him into continual trouble, that brought on him reproaches from all sides, and secured for him a reputation that made him answerable for everything of a wrong character that was done in the neighborhood. A barber's pole could not be removed from the barber's door and placed beside the broker's, but it must be imputed to “that plaguy Ike;” all clandestine pulls at door-bells in the evenings were done by “that plaguy Ike;” if a ball or an arrow made a mistake and dashed through a window, the ball or the arrow belonged to “that plaguy Ike;” if on April Fool's day a piece of paper were found pasted on a door-step, putting grave housekeepers to the trouble and mortification of trying to pick up an imagined letter, the blame was laid to “that plaguy Ike;” and if a voice was heard from round the corner crying “April Fool!” or “sold,” those who heard it said, at once, it was “that plaguy Ike's.” Many a thing he had thus to answer for that he did n't do, as well as many that he did, until Mrs. Partington became convinced of the necessity of securing some one to look after him besides herself. “Miss Parkinson: Your boy has been and tied a culinary utensile to the caudle appendidge of a canine favorite of ourn, an indignity that wee shall never submit to. He is a reproach to the neighborhood, and you must punish him severally. Daring Outrage. — Last evening a burglarious attempt was made to enter the house of Mr. T. Speed, in — street; but the burglar threw down a bust of Shakespeare in the attempt, which attracted the attention of Mr. Muggins, passing at the time, who pursued the ruffian over a shed, and boldly attacked him in Marsh alley, when the villain drew a pistol and threatened to shoot his assailant, who persistingly stuck to him until a blow from the butt of the pistol knocked him down, and the rascal escaped, leaving his hat on the premises, in which was the name O. Hush. Mr. Muggins treated him very severely, and it is believed the atrocious wretch may be detected by the injury he received. The police are upon his track. “Mr. Milling: Be wary of Upshur. A pitcher that goes too often to the well may come back broken. “Mr. Milling. — Sir: You may deem me a scoundrel; but I am to be pitied. I have been led into the temptation of speculation, have compromised our firm in its prosecution, and have fled, like Cain, with the brand of disgrace on my name. But, while thus leaving like a thief, I solemnly promise that my future shall be devoted to a reparation of the trouble I have caused. You shall not hear from me until I am able to wipe the stain from the name of yours, most ungratefully, “My dear Madam: I am a man of few words — a friend of your late husband — with means sufficient to carry out what I propose. I wish to return a portion of the benefit he conferred upon me, a poor boy. I am aware of your family circumstances, and would relieve a portion of your burden. Your youngest daughter should receive an education. I have the ability to secure it, and would deem it a favor to be allowed to incur the expense attending it. The only condition I propose is that no sense of obligation may be allowed to overpower you, and no effort be made to discover the writer. “Dear Partelot: Please excuse me to the family. I am suddenly called to Mulberry-street. My sister has arrived from the country. My regards to Mrs. M., and Misses Matilda and Lily.
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182Author:  Shillaber B. P. (Benjamin Penhallow) 1814-1890Add
 Title:  Life and sayings of Mrs. Partington and others of the family  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: 677EAF. Page 013. In-line Illustration. Image of a gun, a sword, a framed profile of a man. “Perfigis retch: — your our is cum... Mete me to-morrar outside the Inglish lines, and Ile giv yu Jessy. Yours respectively, “Dear Mother, — It grieves me to bid you farewell, but longer sufferance from father's tyrannical usage is impossible. I go to seek my fortune, and when we meet again may it be when he and I shall have learned a lesson from our separation, and the alienation of father and child may be forgotten in the renewed intercourse of man and man. Farewell, mother, and may you be more happy than I should have been able to make you had I lived with you a thousand years. Farewell. Remember sometimes your poor boy,
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183Author:  Simms William Gilmore 1806-1870Add
 Title:  As good as a comedy, or, The Tennesseean's story  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: Let us start fairly, and not on an empty stomach. Reader, we begin with a Georgia breakfast. We are at one of those plain, unpretending, but substantial farm-houses, which, in the interior of Georgia, and other Southern States, distinguished more especially the older inhabitants; those who, from time immemorial, have appeared pretty much as we find them now. These all date back beyond the Revolution; the usual epoch, in our country, at which an ancient family may be permitted to begin. The region is one of those lovely spots among the barrens of middle Georgia, in which, surveyed from the proper point of view, there is nothing barren. You are not to suppose the settlement an old one, by any means, for it is not more than twenty or twenty-five years since all the contiguous territory within a space of sixty miles was rescued from the savages. But our family is an old one; inheriting all the pride, the tastes, and the feelings which belonged to the old Southern “Continentaler.” This will be apparent as we proceed; as it is apparent, in fact, to the eye which contrasts the exterior of its dwelling with that of the neighboring settlements among which it harbors. The spot, though undistinguished by surprising scenery, is a very lovely one, and not unfrequent in the middle country of the Atlantic Southern States. It presents a pleasing prospect under a single glance of the eye, of smooth lawn, and gentle acclivity, and lofty forest growth. A streamlet, or branch, as it is here called, winds along, murmuring as it goes, at the foot of a gentle eminence which is crowned with a luxuriant wealth of pine and cedar. Looking up from this spot while your steed drinks, you behold, perched on another gentle swell of ground, as snug and handsome an edifice as our forest country usually affords; none of your overgrown ambitious establishments, but a trim tidy dwelling, consisting of a single story of wood upon a brick basement, and surrounded on three sides by a most glorious piazza. The lawn slopes away, for several hundred yards, an even and very gradual descent even to the road; a broad tract, well sprinkled with noble trees, oaks, oranges, and cedars, with here and there a clump of towering pines, under which steeds are grazing, in whose slender and symmetrical forms, clean legs, and glossy skins, you may discern instant signs of those superior foreign breeds which the Southern planter so much affects. The house, neatly painted white, with green blinds and shutters, is kept in admirable trim; and, from the agreeable arrangement of trees and shrubbery, it would seem that the place had been laid out and was tenanted by those who brought good taste and a becoming sense of the beautiful to the task. There was no great exercise of art, it is true. That is not pretended. But nature was not suffered to have her own way entirely, was not suffered to overrun the face of the land with her luxuriance; nor was man so savage as to strip her utterly of all her graceful decorations— a crime which we are too frequently called upon to deplore and to denounce, when we contemplate the habitations even of the wealthy among our people, particularly in the South, despoiled, by barbarity, of all their shade-trees, and denuded of all the grace and softness which these necessarily confer upon the landscape. Here, the glance seemed to rest satisfied with what it beheld, and to want for nothing. There might be bigger houses, and loftier structures, of more ambitious design and more commanding proportion; but this was certainly very neat, and very much in its place. Its white outlines caught your eye, glinting through openings of the forest, approaching by the road on either hand, for some distance before you drew nigh, and with such an air of peace and sweetness, that you were insensibly prepared to regard its inmates as very good and well-bred people. Nor are we wrong in these conjectures. But of this hereafter. At this moment, you may see a very splendid iron-gray charger, saddled, and fastened in the shade, some twenty steps from the dwelling. Lift your eye to the piazza, and you behold the owner. A finer-looking fellow lives not in the country. Tall, well made, and muscular, he treads the piazza like a prince. The freedom of carriage which belongs to the gentlemen in our forest country is inimitable, is not to be acquired by art, and is due to the fact that they suffer from no laborious occupation, undergo no drudgery, and are subject to no confinement, which, in childhood, contract the shoulders into a stoop, depress the spirits, enfeeble the energies, and wofully impair the freedom and elegance of the deportment. Constant exercise on foot and horseback, the fox hunt and the chase; these, with other sylvan sports, do wonders for the physique, the grace and the bearing of the country gentleman of the South. The person before us is one of the noblest specimens of his class. A frank and handsome countenance, with a skin clear and inclining to the florid; a bright, martial blue eye; a full chin; thick, massive locks of dark brown hair, and lips that express a rare sweetness, and only do not smile, sufficiently distinguish his peculiarities of face. His dress is simple, after an ordinary fashion of the country, but is surprisingly neat and becoming. A loose blouse, rather more after the Choctaw than the Parisian pattern, does not lessen the symmetry of his shape. His trousers are not so loose as to conceal the fine muscular developments of his lower limbs; nor does his loose negligée neckcloth, simply folded about the neck, prevent the display of a column which admirably sustains the intellectual and massive head which crowns it, and which we now behold uncovered. Booted and spurred, he appears ready for a journey, walks the piazza with something of impatience in his manner, and frequently stops to shade his eyes from the glare, as he strains them in exploring the distant highway. You see that he is young, scarcely twenty-two; eager in his impulses, restive under restraint, and better able to endure and struggle with the conflict than to wait for its slow approaches. Suddenly he starts. He turns to a call from within, and a matron lady appears at the entrance of the dwelling, and joins him in the piazza. He turns to her with respect and fondness. She is his mother; a stately dame, with features like his own; a manner at once easy and dignified; an eye grave, but benevolent; and a voice whose slow, subdued accents possess a rare sweetness not unmingled with command.
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184Author:  Smith Seba 1792-1868Add
 Title:  My thirty years out of the Senate  
 Published:  2001 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: It will be seen by the date above that I wrote this little history of my life twenty odd years ago. It was the time the Boston folks published a little vollum of my first Letters, and the Life was writ to head the vollum with. But I've seen a great deal more of the world since then, and have writ a great many more Letters, and seen a great deal more of the workings of American Politicians. And they'll all have to come into my Thirty Years' View. But there'll be a kind of gap near the close of Gineral Jackson's time, and for awhile after, because a lot of my letters, written at that time, was lost in a fire some years afterward, and I don't suppose I can now find the papers they was published in. But I will bridge over the gap as well as I can, and there'll be a pretty long road to travel both sides of it. And this reminds me how strange the parallel runs between me and Colonel Benton; for he lost a lot of his letters and speeches and dockyments by fire, and had a good deal of a hard job to go over the ground again in getting up his work. But I and Colonel Benton are hard to beat. We generally go ahead, let what will stand in the way. Dear Cousin Ephraim:—I now take my pen in hand to let you know that I am well, hoping these few lines will find you enjoying the same blessing. When I come down to Portland I didn't think o' staying more than three or four days, if I could sell my load of ax handles, and mother's cheese, and cousin Nabby's bundle of footings; but when I got here I found Uncle Nat was gone a freighting down to Quoddy, and aunt Sally said as how I shouldn't stir a step home till he come back agin, which won't be this month. So here I am, loitering about this great town, as lazy as an ox. Ax handles don't fetch nothing; I couldn't hardly give 'em away. Tell Cousin Nabby I sold her footings for nine-pence a pair, and took it all in cotton cloth. Mother's cheese come to seven-and-sixpence; I got her half a pound of shushon, and two ounces of snuff, and the rest in sugar. When Uncle Nat comes home I shall put my ax handles aboard of him, and let him take 'em to Boston next time he goes; I saw a feller tother day, that told me they'd fetch a good price there. I've been here now a whole fortnight, and if I could tell ye one half I've seen, I guess you'd stare worse than if you'd seen a catamount. I've been to meeting, and to the museum, and to both Legislaters, the one they call the House, and the one they call the Sinnet. I spose Uncle Joshua is in a great hurry to hear something about these Legislaters; for you know he's always reading newspapers, and talking politics, when he can get anybody to talk with him. I've seen him when he had five tons of hay in the field well made, and a heavy shower coming up, stand two hours disputing with Squire W. about Adams and Jackson—one calling Adams a tory and a fed, and the other saying Jackson was a murderer and a fool; so they kept it up, till the rain began to pour down, and about spoilt all his hay. GRAND CAUCUS AT DOWNINGVILLE—THE LONG AGONY OVER, AND THE NOMINATION OUT. My Dear Old Friend:—I've jest got the Union, containing the broadside you fired at me, and I'm amazingly struck up, and my feelins is badly hurt, to see that you've got so bewildered that you seemingly don't know me. It's a melancholy sign when old folks get so bewildered that they mistake their oldest and best friends, one for t'other. Why, your head is turned right round. How could you say that I was “a fictitious Major Jack Downing?” and that my last letter to you was a “trashy forgery?” and that you would “strip the mask from me?” I feel bad now about writing my last letter to you, for I'm afraid you took it too hard. I beg of you now, my dear friend, to let all drop right where 'tis; leave Mr. Burke to do the burkin' and the fightin', and you go right out into the country and put yourself under the “cold-water cure” somewhere, and see if your head won't come right again. I “fictitious,” and you going to “strip the mask from me!” Why, my dear friend, if you could only be up here five minutes, and jest lift the mask off of my face one minute, you'd know me jest as easy as the little boy knew his daddy. Your head couldn't be so turned but what you'd know me; for you'd see then the very same old friend that stood by you and Gineral Jackson fifteen, sixteen, and eighteen years ago; the same old friend that coaxed up Gineral Jackson, and made him forgive you for calling him such hard names before he was elected. It's very ungrateful for you to forget me now— that is, if you was in your right mind. For I'm the same old friend, the same Jack Downing that was born and brought up in Downingville, away Down East, in the State of Maine, and that drove down to Portland in Jinnerwary, 1830, with a load of ax-handles and bean-poles, and found the Legislater in a dreadful snarl, all tied and tangled, and see-sawin' up and down a whole fortnight, and couldn't choose their officers. I found my ax-handles and bean-poles wouldn't sell, so I took to polytix, and went to writin' letters. The Legislater fout and fout all winter; but I kept writin', and at last I got 'em straitened out. I kept on writin' for a whole year, and got the polytix of Maine pretty well settled. Then I see Gineral Jackson was getting into trouble, and I footed it on to Washington to give him a lift. And you know I always stuck by him afterward as long as he lived. I helped him fight the battles with Biddle's monster bank till we killed it off. I helped him put down nullification, and showed exactly how it would work if it got the upper hand, in my letter about carrying the raft of logs across Sebago Pond, when Bill Johnson got mad and swore he'd have his log all to himself, and so he cut the lashings and paddled off on his log alone; and then his log begun to roll, and he couldn't keep it steady, and he got ducked head over heels half a dozen times, and come pesky near being drowned. And that wasn't all I did to keep off nullification and help put it down. I brought on my old company of Downingville malitia to Washington, under the command of Cousin Sargent Joel, and kept 'em there, with their guns all loaded, till the danger was over. And I used to go up top of the Congress House every day, and keep watch, and listen off toward South Carolina, so as to be ready, the first moment nullification bust up there, to order Sargent Joel to march and fire. The Gineral always said the spunk I showed was what cowed nullification down so quick, and he always felt very grateful to me for it. Well, I stuck by the Gineral all weathers; and I kept writin' letters from Washington to my old friend, the editor of the Portland Courier, and kept old Hickory's popularity alive among the people, and didn't let nobody meddle with his Administration to hurt it. Well, then, you know, the Gineral, in the summer of 1832, started off on his grand tower Down East, and I went with him. You remember, when we got to Philadelphy, the people swarmed round him so thick they almost smothered him to death; and the Gineral got so tired shakin' hands that he couldn't give another shake, and come pretty near faintin' away; and then I put my hand round under his arm, and shook for him half an hour longer, and so we made out to get through. I sent the whole account of it to my old friend of the Portland Courier. Well, then we jogged along to New York; and there, you remember, we come pesky near getting a ducking when the bridge broke down at Castle Garden. I sent the whole account of it to my old Portland friend. Well, the next day your “original” Major Downing published his first original letter in a New York paper, giving an account of the ducking at Castle Garden. Nobody couldn't dispute but this was the true, ginuine, “original” Downing document, although my “vile imitations” of it had been going on and published almost every week for two years. I say nobody couldn't dispute it, because 'twas proved by Scripture and poetry both. For the Bible says, “The first shall be last, and the last first;” and poetry says, “Coming events cast their shadows before.” So the shadows, the “vile imitations,” had been flying about the country for more than two years before the original event got along. I hope your head will get settled again, so that you can see through these things and understand 'em, and know me jest as you used to. I can't bear the idea of your not knowing me, and thinking I'm “fictitious.” My Dear Old Friend:—I'm alive yet, though I've been through showers of balls as thick as hailstones. I got your paper containing my letter that I wrote on the road to the war. The letters I wrote afterward, the guerrillas 12 and robbers are so thick, I think it's ten chances to one if you got 'em. Some of Gineral Scott's letters is missing just in the same way. Now we've got the city of Mexico annexed, I think the Postmaster-General ought to have a more regular line of stages running here, so our letters may go safe. I wish you would touch the President and Mr. Johnson up a little about this mail-stage business, so they may keep all the coach makers at work, and see that the farmers raise horses as fast as they can, for I don't think they have any idea how long the roads is this way, nor how fast we are gaining south. If we keep on annexin' as fast as we have done a year or two past, it wouldn't take much more than half a dozen years to get clear down to t'other end of South America, clear to Cape Horn, which would be a very good stopping place; for then, if our Government got into bad sledding in North America, and found themselves in a dilemma that hadn't no horn to suit 'em, they would have a horn in South America that they might hold on to. Dear Sir:—I've done my best, according to your directions, to get round Santa Anna, but it is all no use. He's as slippery as an eel, and has as many lives as a cat. Trist and I together can't hold him, and Scott and Taylor can't kill him off. We get fast hold of him with our diplomatics, but he slips through our fingers; and Scott and Taylor cuts his head off in every town where they can catch him, but he always comes to life in the next town, and shows as many heads as if he had never lost one. I had a long talk with him in the city, and pinned him right down to the bargain he made with you when you let him into Vera Cruz, and asked him “why he didn't stick to it.” He said he “did stick to it as far as circumstances rendered it prudent.” My Dear Old Friends:—Gineral Scott and I find a good deal of bother about getting our dispatches through to Vera Cruz, or else you'd hear from me oftener. I do think the President is too backward about clearing out this road from here to Vera Cruz, and keeping it open, and introducing the improvements into the country that we stand so much in need of here. He and Mr. Ritchie pretends to have constitutional scruples about it, and says the Constitution don't allow of internal improvements; and Mr. Ritchie says the resolutions of '98 is dead agin it, too; and, besides, Mr. Ritchie says these internal improvements is a Federal doctrine, and he'd always go agin 'em for that, if nothin' else. But 'tis strange to me the President hasn't never found out yet that where there's a will there's a way, Constitution or no Constitution. All he's got to do is, to call all these roads round here in Mexico “military roads,” and then he'd have the Constitution on his side, for everbody knows the Constitution allows him to make military roads. I know the President is very delicate about fringing on the Constitution, so I don't blame him so much for holding back about the internal improvements here in Mexico, though I don't think there's any other part of the United States where they are needed more. But there's no need of splitting hairs about the roads; military roads isn't internal improvements, and he's a right to make military roads as much as he pleases. And as them is jest the kind of roads we want here, and shall want for fifty years (for our armies will have to keep marching about the country for fifty years before they'll be able to tame these Mexicans, and turn 'em into Americans), it is confounded strange to me that the President is so behind-hand about this business. What's the use of our going on and annexin' away down South here, if he don't back us up and hold on to the slack? And there's no way to hold on to it but to keep these military roads open so our armies can go back and forth, and bring us in victuals, and powder, and shot, and money. Dear Colonel:—Things is getting along here as well as could be expected, considerin' the help we have, but we are all together too weak-handed to work to profit. If you want us to hurry along down South, we need a good deal more help and more money. It wouldn't be no use to give that three millions of dollars to Santa Anna now, for the people have got so out with him that he couldn't make peace if he had six millions. He's skulking about the country, and has as much as he can do to take care of himself. So I think you had better give up the notion about peace altogether, it 'll be such a hard thing to get, and send on the three millions here to help us along in our annexin'. It's dangerous standin' still in this annexin' business. It's like the old woman's soap—if it don't go ahead, it goes back. It would be a great help to us in the way of holdin' on to what we get, if you would carry out that plan of giving the Mexican land to settlers from the United States, as fast as we annex it. I've been very impatient to see your proclamation offering the land to settlers to come out here. You've no idea how much help it would be to us if we only had a plenty of our folks out here, so that as fast as we killed a Mexican, or drove him off from his farm, we could put an American right on to it. If we could only plant as we go, in this way, we should soon have a crop of settlers here that could hold on to the slack themselves, and leave the army free to go ahead, and keep on annexin'. I thought when I left Washington, you was agoing to put out such a proclamation right away. And I think you are putting it off a good deal too long, for we've got land and farms enough here now for two hundred thousand at least; and, if they would only come on fast enough, I think we could make room for twenty thousand a week for a year to come. But I'm afraid you're too delicate about doing your duty in this business; you are such a stickler for the Constitution. I'm afraid you're waiting for Congress to meet, so as to let them have a finger in the pie. But I wouldn't do it. From all I can hear, it looks as if the Whigs was coming into power; and if they should, it would be a terrible calamity, for they are too narrowminded and too much behind the age to understand the rights of this annexin' business, and it's ten chances to one if they don't contrive some way to put a stop to it. GREAT BATTLE IN THE COURT-MARTIAL. Dear Colonel:—I've been stumping it round all over the lot for two or three months, tight and tight, for our American friend, Gineral Cass, and as I s'pose you are very anxious and uneasy to know how it's coming out, I thought I would set down and make out a private report, and send it on to you by the telegraph wires, for they say they go like lightening, and give you some of the premonitory symptons, so that when the after-clap comes you may be a little prepared for it, and not feel so bad. As I said afore, I've been all round the lot, sometimes by the steamboats, and sometimes by the railroads, and sometimes by the telegraph, and when there wasn't no other WRITING BY TELEGRAPH. 688EAF. Page 310. In-line image. A man sits upon a telephone pole writing a telegraph on a piece of paper perched on top of his tophat. way to go, I footed it. And I'm satisfied the jig is up with us, and it's no use in my trying any longer; and Mr. Buchanan's speech was all throwed away, too. I'm very sure we shall get some of the States, but I'll be hanged if I can tell which ones. There an't a single State that I should dare to bet upon alone, but taking 'em all in the lump, I should still stick out strong for half a dozen at least. I see where all the difficulty is, as plain as day. You may depend upon it, we should elect Gineral Cass easy enough if it wasn't for Gineral Taylor; but he stands peskily in the way, jest as much as he stood in the way of the Mexicans at Bony Vista. As for Mr. Van Buren, if he stood agin us alone, we should tread him all to atoms; he couldn't make no headway at all, especially after we got the nomination at Baltimore. Jest between you and me, I don't think much of Mr. Van Buren now. I don't believe he ever was a Democrat. I think he only made believe all the time; and I'd bet two to one he's only making believe now. I wish the Old Gineral, dear Old Hickory, that's dead and gone, could be here now to have the handling of him for a little while; if he didn't bring him into the traces I wouldn't guess agin. Dear Gineral:—I'm afraid you've thought strange of it that I haint writ to you afore now, for so long time past; but I couldn't, I've been so busy cruising round among the fishermen down to New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, that I couldn't get no time to write, nor couldn't find no Post-Office to send it. Ye see, Gineral, I didn't accept your invitation to take a seat in your Cabinet, 'cause I'm one of them sort that can't bear setting a great deal. I can't stan' it without I'm up and knocking about pretty much every day; and I understood the Cabinet had to set nigh about half the time, so I told you I should a good deal rather have some foreign appointment, where I could stir myself. And you told me the foreign appointments was pretty much all spoken for, twenty times over, but you would give me a commission as Minister-Gineral, and I might go round and look after the interests of the country wherever I thought MAJOR DOWNING'S VISIT TO THE FISHING SMACKS. 688EAF. Illustration page. The Major is standing up in a rowboat, being addressed by a sailor who is standing on the deck of a larger fishing boat next to which the rowboat has drawn. The sailor points to the mast of the boat, and another sailor is bending over some ropes at the prow of the boat. In the background there are many more fishing boats. One bears an "S" on its mainsail. best. Now that was jest what I liked; you couldn't a gin me no appointment that would suit me better.
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185Author:  Spofford Harriet Elizabeth Prescott 1835-1921Add
 Title:  New-England legends  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: The islands about the harbors of all our New England rivers are so wild, and would seem to have offered so many advantages, that they have always been supposed, by the ruder population, to be the hiding-place of piratical treasures, and particularly of Captain Kidd's; and the secretion, among rocks and sands, of chests of jewels stripped from noble Spanish ladies who have walked the awful plank, with shotbags full of diamonds, and ingots of pure gold, is one of the tenets of the vulgar faith. This belief has ranged up and down the whole shore with more freedom than the pirates ever did, and the legends on the subject are legion —from the old Frenchman of Passamaquoddy Bay to the wild stories of the Jersey and Carolina sandbars too countless for memory, the Fireship off Newport, the Shrieking Woman of Marblehead, and the Lynn Mariner who, while burying his treasure in a cave, was sealed up alive by a thunderbolt that cleft the rock, and whom some one, under spiritual inspiration, spent lately a dozen years in vain endeavor to unearth. The parties that have equipped themselves with hazel-rods and spades, and proceeded, at the dead of night, in search of these riches, without turning their heads or uttering the Divine Name, and, digging till they struck metal, have met with all manner of ghostly appearances, from the little naked negro sitting and crying on the edge of the hogshead of doubloons, to the ball of fire sailing straight up the creek, till it hangs trembling on the tide just opposite the excavation into which it shoots with the speed of lightning, so terrifying and bewildering the treasure-seekers that when all is over they fail to find again the place of their late labor—the parties that have met with these adventures would, perhaps, cease to waste much more of their time in such pursuits in this part of the country if they knew that Captain Kidd had never landed north of Block Island until, with fatal temerity, he brought his vessel into Boston, and that every penny of his gains was known and was accounted for, while as to Bradish, Tew, and the rest of that genry, they wasted everything as they went in riotous living, and could never have had a dollar to hide, and no disposition to hide it if they had; and whatever they did possess they took with them when, quietly abandoning their ships to the officers of the law, they went up the creeks and rivers in boats, and dispersed themselves throughout the country. “Received of Bishop Fenwick, the sum of seventy-nine dollars and twenty cents, the same being taxes assessed by the Assessors of the town of Charlestown, upon the land and buildings of the late Convent of Mount Benedict, for the year 1834, and which were this day demanded by Solomon Hovey, Jr., Collector, agreeably to instructions received by him from the Assessors, to that effect, although said buildings had been destroyed by a mob in August last. “Honor Governor my friend You my friend. I desire your worship and your power, because I hope you can do some great matters—this one. I am poor and naked and I have no men at my place because I afraid allways Mohogs he will kill me every day and night. If your worship when please pray help me you no let Mohogs kill me at my place at Malamake Rever called Panukkog and Natukkog, I will submit your worship and your power. — And now I want pouder and such alminishun, shatt and guns, because I have forth at my home and I plant theare. “Now this day I com your house, I want se you, and I bring my hand at before you I want shake hand to you if your worship when please then you receive my hand then shake your hand and my hand. You my friend because I remember at old time when live my grant father and grant mother then Englishmen com this country, then my grant father and Englishmen they make a good govenant, they friend allwayes, my grant father leving at place called Malamake Rever, other name chef Natukkog and Panukkog, that one rever great many names, and I bring you this few skins at this first time I will give you my friend. This all Indian hand. “Please your Worship—I will intreat you matther, you my friend now; this, if my Indian he do you long, pray you no put your law, because som my Indians fooll, some men much love drunk then he no know what he do, maybe he do mischif when he drunk, if so pray you must let me know what he done because I will ponis him what have done, you, you my friend, if you desire my business then sent me I will help you if I can. “Mr. Mason — Pray I want speake you a few words if your worship when please, because I com parfas. I will speake this governor but he go away so he say at last night, and so far I understand this governor his power that your power now, so he speak his own mouth. Pray if you take what I want pray come to me because I want go hom at this day. “Honorable Sir—The Governor and Council having this day received a letter from Major Hinchman, of Chelmsford, that some Indians are come into them, who report that there is a gathering of Indians in or about Pennacook, with design of mischief to the English. Among the said Indians one Hawkins is said to be a principal designer, and that they have a particular design against yourself and Mr. Peter Coffin, which the Council thought it necessary presently to dispatch advice thereof, to give you notice, that you take care of your own safeguard, they intending to endeavor to betray you on a pretension of trade.
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186Author:  Stowe Harriet Beecher 1811-1896Add
 Title:  Agnes of Sorrento  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: The setting sunbeams slant over the antique gateway of Sorrento, fusing into a golden bronze the brown freestone vestments of old Saint Antonio, who with his heavy stone mitre and upraised hands has for centuries kept watch thereupon.
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